Verdi’s fifth opera may feature the sort of implausibility that gives the genre a bad name, but it also contains such a succession of rich melodies, forceful duets, trios and choruses that make it all worthwhile.
The rebel Ernani and Elvira are lovers, but she is also desired by Don Silva and no less than Don Carlo, the future King Charles V. After the latter kidnaps her, Ernani—now Silva’s prisoner—offers his life in return for an attempt to rescue her. When he succeeds, Carlo is impressed by the couple’s devotion and permits their marriage, but the jealous Silva calls in the rebel’s pledge of honour and Ernani dutifully kills himself.
With that kind of libretto, it’s best largely to ignore the plot and enjoy the music. And if some of the aristocratic celebrations sound more like rustic entertainment from the composer’s native Busetto, this is offset by some vigorous ensembles for conspirators, such as the patriotic "Si redesti il Leon di Castiglia" that the original Venetian audience adapted as their own, just as Italians had earlier taken up "Va Pensiero" from Nabucco.
The vocal writing can be challenging, particularly for the Elvira, who has to negotiate a wide tessitura, much of it for the chest register. Fortunately, Uruguayan soprano Maria Jose Siri is well suited to the role, almost equally comfortable and powerful at the lower end of the range as at the top. She’s expressive, too, making free use of tempi in ornamentation for dramatic effect.
There is not much on-stage chemistry between her and Francesco Meli’s Ernani. He sings with great tenderness, but a little more reckless abandon would not go amiss in the role of this Romantic hero of derring-do.
If there is a certain reserve in Roberto Frontali’s Carlo also, it is more fitting in a prince accustomed to command, whose quiet authority Verdi seems to imply by writing his arias in the upper range of a baritone, sung here with cool assurance.
Bass Vitalij Kowaljow has the strongest stage presence as Silva, a lowering figure of fate as he summons his rival to self-inflicted death. He sings with impressive control, maintaining for example the long pianissimo at the end of his act one aria "Infelice!...e tuo credevi" with the steadiness of a rock.
Some of Verdi’s best passages are in the duets and trios, particularly the impressive trio that closes the opera, and which stands comparison with many in the great works to come. The singers work perfectly together, often backed by an excellent, if somewhat static chorus.
A disappointing aspect of the production is the set. The action, which takes place in Spain, is transferred from the 16th century to the early 19th, which may accord with late Romantic sensibilities of the time, but the background, whether for court or catacombs, is made of bleak panels that resemble pre-cast concrete from brutalist 1960s architecture. Romanticism indeed!